Weapons, pickups and other things of TM:B · 11:19pm Nov 19th, 2020
All of the weapons, pickups and the like from Twisted Metal: Black and how they work. This blog post is just to provide context for many of the things that appear in the battles of Twisted Magic: Black.
Turbo: Increases acceleration and top speed when used. The only way to refill it is with a turbo pickup.
Repair pickup: Restores some health.
Repair station: Fully restores health. They’re marked on every contestant’s radar with a white plus (+) symbol. After use, a repair station is temporarily disabled. Once it is used a certain number of times in a battle, it is disabled permanently, and its marker disappears from the radar.
Energy Attacks
Unique weapons and items that use a dedicated, constantly-regenerating energy supply.
Freeze Missile: Temporarily immobilizes one opponent. Has moderate homing ability. If hit by one, cranking the engine will end its effects faster.
Shield: Blocks all damage for a short time. The affected vehicle is covered with bluish-white lines while the shield is active.
Invisibility: Turns the user invisible and makes them disappear from the radar for a short time. Weapons cannot home in or lock on to them while it is active. Firing a weapon or contacting an opponent makes it wear off prematurely.
Mine: Drops a mine behind the user that damages the first opponent to drive over it.
Charged Mine: A more powerful mine.
Rear-fire: Fires the selected weapon behind the user instead of ahead of them. Not every weapon can be used with this.
Weapons
Machine Guns: A ranged weapon fitted to every contestant’s vehicle. Their design, placement and number depends on the vehicle, but these differences are purely cosmetic. They have unlimited ammunition, low damage per shot, and no homing. If fired too long without pause, they will overheat and cease until they cool down.
Special Attack: A unique weapon/attack that can only be used by one specific vehicle. They all require one Special Unit to use; these generate automatically over time and don’t contribute to weapon bay capacity.
Pickup weapons
Weapons acquired via pickups located throughout the battlegrounds. Each pickup has a colored aura to allow them to be identified from a distance. A limited number can be carried at once.
Power missile: Inflicts strong damage and slight knockback, and has no homing.
Homing missile: Inflicts weak damage and has extremely strong homing.
Fire missile: The middle ground between the power and homing missiles; it inflicts more damage than the homing missile, and has more homing than the power missile.
Gas can: An incendiary projectile that arcs through the air when launched, with its position indicated by a target reticle on the ground; firing again will bring it down onto the reticle. Getting an opponent in the center of the reticle incurs a damage bonus and sets them on fire, damaging them over time. The fire eventually goes out on its own, but using turbo will extinguish it immediately.
Ricochet: A disc-shaped projectile that travels along the ground and bounces off barriers. The projectile will turn red and incur a damage bonus if it bounces before hitting an opponent. It has slight knockback and no homing in both states.
Satellite: A cluster of missiles that shoot into the air and then crash down onto a target reticle directly in front of the user. The reticle changes color the longer the missiles are in the air, indicating how much damage will be done. The missiles can be brought down manually by firing again, but they come down automatically a certain amount of time after being fired, indicated by the reticle flashing. Letting them come down automatically does more damage. Getting an opponent in the center of the reticle incurs a damage bonus.
Zoomy: 10 rapid-fire missiles that have moderate homing. Hitting with all 10 missiles incurs a damage bonus.
Reticle: A chargeable volley of homing missiles. When selected, a green border appears in the the driver’s windshield and crosshairs will lock on to a single opponent within the border. Firing once starts a countdown, firing again shoots. During the countdown, the weapon charges only when locked on; a longer charge means more missiles fired (up to 10). The crosshairs change color the more the weapon is charged, and flash when full charge is achieved. The crosshairs can re-target while charging, but the charge resets if all potential targets exit the border. If the countdown timer expires, the weapon will be lost. A full charge incurs a damage bonus.
Environmental: Causes a part of the battleground’s environment to attack nearby vehicles, potentially including the user if they’re too close. Not every battleground has an Environmental attack.
Machine Gun Upgrade/Mega Guns: Increases the damage and rate of fire of the machine guns. A single pickup has 30 rounds; up to 60 can be held at once. The shots have no homing, but are capable of inflicting massive damage.
